Robotics, and particularly general-purpose robotics outside the factory floors is very fast-growing market with immense potential markets just a couple short years down the road.
"Simple" innocent entertainment bots like AIBO and QRIO you are seeing now are just a tip of the iceberg. Forget super AI research. It doesnt exactly take fully concious thinking to pour concrete, do the dishes or flip burgers.
If MS corporate net was really compromised, like BBC reported, the leaker should have posted it on download.microsoft.com.
If it were posted there ( like in DirectX9.1.zip or somesuch ), would they still have legal grounds to hassle the users who downloaded it ?
Ok, thats a lame release. If the hackers or leakers were in the MS corporate network, they should have posted it on Microsoft site.
Imagine thousands of users D/Ling it from download.microsoft.com or somesuch.
And if it were downloaded in this way, would MS have legal grounds for saying you cant have it ?
A mention of prior art in balooning the other planets would be in order. Many people arent aware of the fact that Russian Venera program, what later become Vega, successfully flew two balloons in Venusian atmosphere in 1984.
Geoffrey Landis has a couple very thought-provoking papers on his website, regarding possible further developments of atmospheric flight on both mars and venus, and possibilities for human living in upper atmosphere....
What i dont like to see, is when people try to copy the crappy ( but sometimes, pretty-looking ) features, that actually draw away from usefulness.
Improvements to file selector are all fine and dandy, as long as the thing actually improves the way you can work with it, at acceptable performance ( as this particular version seems to do )
But there are lots of widgets incorporated into "modern GUI-s" that should never have left the drawing boards. Witness the WinXP desktop in default post-install configuration. You have to spend significant extra effort every time to turn all that fancy crap off. And thats every time you create a new user profile.
Heres where OSS stands head and shoulders above anything that M$ has to offer, you dont want the misfeatures ? Simply dont install them.
Which of the distros will welcome all those lusers who were just left with no support for their old Win98 boxes ? Countless of them are still used in those SOHO environments
So, which distro will best welcome those users with open arms ? You know, low-end systems, of Celery333 age, couple of gigs of HDD and 64MBs of RAM.
Umm.. yes thankyou, i'll take two.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/robotics/robotics.jsp
Now if VIA would get their act together and actually release Nano-ITX, it would perhaps survive on battery power longer than five minutes.
Ok, didnt take an oracle to predict nature of comments here.. now how about some useful pointers for people that actually want to replace win98 on their systems with something more reasonable ?
Assuming your average 98 box can be anything from PII 200 mhz to 800 ghz durons and beyond, lousy integrated graphics on most of them. Browsing the net, do some office work with spreadsheets and word processors, using instant messengers. A couple of arcade games now and then.
where should people look, to get up to speed as fast and painlessly as possible ? where's the proverbial www.migrate98tolinux.org ?
Re:XForms look very interesting, but ...
on
XForms Essentials
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There are already quite capable plugins out there.
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/#implementations
IIRC ive tinkered with Mosquito, FormsPlayer and Xero.
Although PDF hasnt been natively supported in browsers, it hasnt stopped its widespread use on the web.
Quiz of the day,
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/p hotos/images/800/Brian%20Paul%20and%20Burt_800.jpg
Identify the Mastermind, the Pilot, and a Sponsor on the picture ( IMO, a instant classic ).
BTW, scaled has posted loads of new images over here:
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/p hotos/photos_text.htm
Check out http://plyojump.com and its accompanying blog for very good summaries on Japanese humanoid robot developments. ( the site seems to be down at the moment, but google cache helps )
QRIO was presented already back in august, at Robodex2003. QRIO is a direct followup, "production release" for previous development codenamed SDR-4XII.
There were other bots presented at Robodex, that were able to perform jumps and even somersaults.
The most interesting two IMO, are not megacorps entertainment bots ASIMO, AIBO etc, but humanoids that are of practical use or very low-budget, like HRP-II that is able todrive a backhoe, remotely assisted
And other one, SILF developed by a single person ( student ? ) on obviosly quite a low budget. Still, the bot is able to perform jumps.
Yeah, they tested a 99% completed and tested vehicle with a 10% of fuel in its tank, powering up the engine for the very first time.
Nothing to see here, move on folks.
AWW.
This report basically means that
A) they have to fix a glitch with the landing system
B) they could probably fuel up 100% tomorrow and fly up to space
Claiming the X-prize, as of now, cant happen before the end of Jan 2004, though, as the announcement for official flight has to announced 2 months in advance.
IMO, they are quite far along, i'd expect a hover test in a week or two ( if not for the _damn_ holidays )
BTW, as you probably know, official X-Prize flight attempt has to be announced at least two months in advance, so everybody still has a chance, as Rutan hasnt made such announcement yet.
"Their flight wasn't a stunt. Most important, unlike Santos-Dumont's flight, it did not depend on having a pilot of extraordinary skill."
You are in a stark contrast with what is written on TechcentralStationThe Wright's first aircraft was not only unstable, but extremely so, almost akin to walking a tightrope. This made it very difficult to fly, with the slightest bit of pilot inattention or control error having the possibility of catastrophe. On the other hand, it should only increase our regard for them as pilots for their ability to handle an aircraft that few modern experienced pilots can fly.
IMO, the whole "first powered flight" argument is so much debatable, that finding the absolute truth is practically impossible. Even russians claim that Mozaisky was the first one to conduct powered flight
IMO, one should look at the whole issue the other way. Lets draw parallels with automotive industry. Which was the first true automobile ? Now, which was the one that laid foundation to what evolved into car as we know it today ?
IMO, it was Ford Model T. Thats the true ancestor of the modern car.
So, which was the Ford Model T of aviation ? Where did its heritage come from, Brazil, Russia, France, Langley or Wrights bros ?
I stand corrected, apparently i misinterpreted what was written in the X-prize document.
The next phase of successively higher alitude test and ultimately manned X Prize flights will be dependent on what the team calls its biggest challenge: the launch license application and accompanying environmental review. Technically, Armadillo claims they will be ready to fly X Prize missions well before the end of the year, but Team members are fond of referring to the Werhnher von Braun quote: "We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming"
BTW, how come Armadillo is presented with Canadian flag in this document ? 8|
The most comprehensive collection of info on ISAS RVT. There are links to videos of previous flight test campaigns.
BTW, japanese heavy industrustry giant IHI ( best known as a turbomachinery manufacturer, yeah, thats superchargers for you ) has been contributing to this project. With Japanese industry giants involved, it might not be long before you can take to the skies with Toyota Spacecruiser.
Nobody forces you to RUN OE, and as long as it doesnt run, it does no harm.
Plus, you can create a Win installation CD for yourself that does not install OE at all, go look it up on Technet, keywords: syspart, sysprep, unattend.
You gotta take into consideration that it has to reenter only from 100km at no relative speed to ground ( and atmosphere ) . As opposed to Mach 18 of real orbital reenty.
So the heat is much smaller than true orbital vehicles.
How will it handle this "benign" reentry ? Its got this funky shuttle cock tail arrangement going, read up on it on original launch day articles.
Anyhow, i hope Carmack, brits or some of canadians will win. "Elite" airship designer working on angel investor budget doesnt convey the true formula of X-Prize, and that would be true tinkerers and garage builders.
>>Seriously though, where are you learning this stuff from, I had a quick look for intertial guidance and MEMS (not such a sensible idea in these TIA times) but I only got the encyclopaedia answers.<<
Google the archives of Armadillo Aerospace on gyros and IMU's.
You'll get quite a good overview of the stuff.
This probably is a very pessimistic estimate.
For somewhat more optimistic outlook, see Private Space Development Timeline
Mind you Elon Musk of SpaceX is planning to launch his semi-reusable Falcon in January, 2004. That is, to orbit. Some other companies, like Microcosm and SpaceDev are on track to launch their low-cost orbital vehicles in quite near future too.
If and when X-Prize is won, the efforts ( sub ~million per launch manned suborbital ) and current "cheap" launcher builders will converge and it isnt unreasonable to expect a couple million range manned orbital launches in this decade. Given some competition and general revitalization of industry, expect new high-tech technologies and materials to be employed real fast after initial proofs of concept, thus bringing the price down even further.
Imagine, a million dollar orbital trip that could be won on lottery.
Oh and more on canopies,
Starchaser actually tested their canopy before with driving a ATV out of the cargo plane.
The story and images can be found here
Thats what i'd call an "extreme debugging".
Slashdot Mirror
Here's why:
http://roboticnation.blogspot.com
http://www.plyojump.com/weblog
Robotics, and particularly general-purpose robotics outside the factory floors is very fast-growing market with immense potential markets just a couple short years down the road.
"Simple" innocent entertainment bots like AIBO and QRIO you are seeing now are just a tip of the iceberg. Forget super AI research. It doesnt exactly take fully concious thinking to pour concrete, do the dishes or flip burgers.
Well, couple years ago i was really keen on becoming a 100% C++ writer and ditch my C habits entirely.
Due to the nature of most of my projects, like 90% of my time was spent writing wrappers for all sorts of C-style API interfaces.
Finally i gave up and embraced the zen - pick the right tool for the right job. Being proficient with all sorts of tools helps too.
If MS corporate net was really compromised, like BBC reported, the leaker should have posted it on download.microsoft.com.
If it were posted there ( like in DirectX9.1.zip or somesuch ), would they still have legal grounds to hassle the users who downloaded it ?
Ok, thats a lame release. If the hackers or leakers were in the MS corporate network, they should have posted it on Microsoft site.
Imagine thousands of users D/Ling it from download.microsoft.com or somesuch.
And if it were downloaded in this way, would MS have legal grounds for saying you cant have it ?
Ok, so this patent seems to prohibit using different flavors of client-side script in XHTML pages ?
Say, javascript and jscript for instance ?
A mention of prior art in balooning the other planets would be in order. Many people arent aware of the fact that Russian Venera program, what later become Vega, successfully flew two balloons in Venusian atmosphere in 1984. ....
Geoffrey Landis has a couple very thought-provoking papers on his website, regarding possible further developments of atmospheric flight on both mars and venus, and possibilities for human living in upper atmosphere
What i dont like to see, is when people try to copy the crappy ( but sometimes, pretty-looking ) features, that actually draw away from usefulness.
Improvements to file selector are all fine and dandy, as long as the thing actually improves the way you can work with it, at acceptable performance ( as this particular version seems to do )
But there are lots of widgets incorporated into "modern GUI-s" that should never have left the drawing boards. Witness the WinXP desktop in default post-install configuration. You have to spend significant extra effort every time to turn all that fancy crap off. And thats every time you create a new user profile.
Heres where OSS stands head and shoulders above anything that M$ has to offer, you dont want the misfeatures ? Simply dont install them.
Which of the distros will welcome all those lusers who were just left with no support for their old Win98 boxes ? Countless of them are still used in those SOHO environments
So, which distro will best welcome those users with open arms ? You know, low-end systems, of Celery333 age, couple of gigs of HDD and 64MBs of RAM.
Umm .. yes thankyou, i'll take two.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/robotics/robotics.jsp
Now if VIA would get their act together and actually release Nano-ITX, it would perhaps survive on battery power longer than five minutes.
Ok, didnt take an oracle to predict nature of comments here .. now how about some useful pointers for people that actually want to replace win98 on their systems with something more reasonable ?
Assuming your average 98 box can be anything from PII 200 mhz to 800 ghz durons and beyond, lousy integrated graphics on most of them. Browsing the net, do some office work with spreadsheets and word processors, using instant messengers. A couple of arcade games now and then.
where should people look, to get up to speed as fast and painlessly as possible ? where's the proverbial www.migrate98tolinux.org ?
There are already quite capable plugins out there. http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/#implementations IIRC ive tinkered with Mosquito, FormsPlayer and Xero. Although PDF hasnt been natively supported in browsers, it hasnt stopped its widespread use on the web.
Quiz of the day,p hotos/images/800/Brian%20Paul%20and%20Burt_800.jpg
.
p hotos/photos_text.htm
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/
Identify the Mastermind, the Pilot, and a Sponsor on the picture ( IMO, a instant classic )
BTW, scaled has posted loads of new images over here: http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/
Check out http://plyojump.com and its accompanying blog for very good summaries on Japanese humanoid robot developments. ( the site seems to be down at the moment, but google cache helps )
QRIO was presented already back in august, at Robodex2003. QRIO is a direct followup, "production release" for previous development codenamed SDR-4XII.
There were other bots presented at Robodex, that were able to perform jumps and even somersaults.
The most interesting two IMO, are not megacorps entertainment bots ASIMO, AIBO etc, but humanoids that are of practical use or very low-budget, like HRP-II that is able to drive a backhoe, remotely assisted
And other one, SILF developed by a single person ( student ? ) on obviosly quite a low budget. Still, the bot is able to perform jumps.
Yeah, they tested a 99% completed and tested vehicle with a 10% of fuel in its tank, powering up the engine for the very first time.
Nothing to see here, move on folks.
AWW.
This report basically means that
A) they have to fix a glitch with the landing system
B) they could probably fuel up 100% tomorrow and fly up to space
Claiming the X-prize, as of now, cant happen before the end of Jan 2004, though, as the announcement for official flight has to announced 2 months in advance.
they're nowhere near completing assembly of their full-size rocket
On the contrary
IMO, they are quite far along, i'd expect a hover test in a week or two ( if not for the _damn_ holidays )
BTW, as you probably know, official X-Prize flight attempt has to be announced at least two months in advance, so everybody still has a chance, as Rutan hasnt made such announcement yet.
"Their flight wasn't a stunt. Most important, unlike Santos-Dumont's flight, it did not depend on having a pilot of extraordinary skill." You are in a stark contrast with what is written on TechcentralStation The Wright's first aircraft was not only unstable, but extremely so, almost akin to walking a tightrope. This made it very difficult to fly, with the slightest bit of pilot inattention or control error having the possibility of catastrophe. On the other hand, it should only increase our regard for them as pilots for their ability to handle an aircraft that few modern experienced pilots can fly.
IMO, the whole "first powered flight" argument is so much debatable, that finding the absolute truth is practically impossible. Even russians claim that Mozaisky was the first one to conduct powered flight
IMO, one should look at the whole issue the other way. Lets draw parallels with automotive industry. Which was the first true automobile ? Now, which was the one that laid foundation to what evolved into car as we know it today ? IMO, it was Ford Model T. Thats the true ancestor of the modern car.
So, which was the Ford Model T of aviation ? Where did its heritage come from, Brazil, Russia, France, Langley or Wrights bros ?
I stand corrected, apparently i misinterpreted what was written in the X-prize document.
The next phase of successively higher alitude test and ultimately manned X Prize flights will be dependent on what the team calls its biggest challenge: the launch license application and accompanying environmental review. Technically, Armadillo claims they will be ready to fly X Prize missions well before the end of the year, but Team members are fond of referring to the Werhnher von Braun quote: "We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming"
BTW, how come Armadillo is presented with Canadian flag in this document ? 8|
This new "Spim" has been there since first ICQ installment. ASL anyone ?
The most comprehensive collection of info on ISAS RVT. There are links to videos of previous flight test campaigns. BTW, japanese heavy industrustry giant IHI ( best known as a turbomachinery manufacturer, yeah, thats superchargers for you ) has been contributing to this project. With Japanese industry giants involved, it might not be long before you can take to the skies with Toyota Spacecruiser.
Nobody forces you to RUN OE, and as long as it doesnt run, it does no harm. Plus, you can create a Win installation CD for yourself that does not install OE at all, go look it up on Technet, keywords: syspart, sysprep, unattend.
You gotta take into consideration that it has to reenter only from 100km at no relative speed to ground ( and atmosphere ) . As opposed to Mach 18 of real orbital reenty.
So the heat is much smaller than true orbital vehicles.
How will it handle this "benign" reentry ? Its got this funky shuttle cock tail arrangement going, read up on it on original launch day articles.
Anyhow, i hope Carmack, brits or some of canadians will win. "Elite" airship designer working on angel investor budget doesnt convey the true formula of X-Prize, and that would be true tinkerers and garage builders.
Yes, they need to teach some of the robosharks to do the pickup.
o boshark.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/outdoors/nature/2003/r
No AWACS, no sonars, nothing will pay attention. Except Baywatch perhaps.
>>Seriously though, where are you learning this stuff from, I had a quick look for intertial guidance and MEMS (not such a sensible idea in these TIA times) but I only got the encyclopaedia answers.<<
Google the archives of Armadillo Aerospace on gyros and IMU's. You'll get quite a good overview of the stuff.
This probably is a very pessimistic estimate. For somewhat more optimistic outlook, see Private Space Development Timeline Mind you Elon Musk of SpaceX is planning to launch his semi-reusable Falcon in January, 2004. That is, to orbit. Some other companies, like Microcosm and SpaceDev are on track to launch their low-cost orbital vehicles in quite near future too. If and when X-Prize is won, the efforts ( sub ~million per launch manned suborbital ) and current "cheap" launcher builders will converge and it isnt unreasonable to expect a couple million range manned orbital launches in this decade. Given some competition and general revitalization of industry, expect new high-tech technologies and materials to be employed real fast after initial proofs of concept, thus bringing the price down even further. Imagine, a million dollar orbital trip that could be won on lottery.
Oh and more on canopies, Starchaser actually tested their canopy before with driving a ATV out of the cargo plane. The story and images can be found here Thats what i'd call an "extreme debugging".